Is This Goodbye, Charlie Brown?

As an aside, good luck to Curt Schilling, who's undergoing what may be career-ending surgery. While I've taken my shots at the guy here and elsewhere for being, shall we say, a bit of a blowhard, he's certainly a hell of a pitcher, and never less than an eminently entertaining character. In the end I'd much rather have someone shoot their mouth off from time to time than become a dull sound-bite drone in public, as a lot of athletes feel compelled to.

I was at Game 6 of the 2004 ALCS, as a fan, and I won't be forgetting Schilling's performance that night anytime soon -- though of course, sitting in the far reaches of the upper deck, I had no clue there was bloodied hosiery involved at the time. (I also couldn't see the A-Rod slap play from up there, and so I'm afraid I may have had some harsh words for the first base umpire, specifically regarding his parentage and mental acuity, which in retrospect may have been a bit unjust). Schilling was a great focal point for the Boston/New York rivalry, stirring up a dozen mini-controversies over the years -- deliberately or not, he definitely had a knack for getting a rise out of people. If this is the end for him in Boston, which sounds likely, Sox-Yanks games won't quite be the same.

Of course, every time I start to work up some real fondness for the guy, I remember this:


Sigh.

(Yeah, I usually try to stay away from politics on here, and for good reason, but fuck it -- I have my limits).